Forms for an ocean

Edited by Susan M. Schultz

Poems by Ye Mimi

the pace of the snapshot is bovine/ black dogs bend an ear the whole a.m.a solitary someone at the rim of the world is gleaning somethingnearby summits/ structure without rhyme or reasonlilies sing the spring presumptive/ coral tree blossoms sicken abreastwomen refurbish their skin on sandy beaches/ a plumped up oil drumwe on sunlight’s dotted linehold open our palms/ to read a word you cannot see the end ofpractice focusing on facing the sea/ facing off a score of smilespractice your haiku by earslope of saw-tooth grass/ bevy of ringdovesfloating conversation/ beerlater, from his pocket, he fumbles up a lump of icesubliming as vaporand warm timethus she’s like a flight of driftwood/ arriving at the sternrain/ when it fallsthey merge, become one/ to help the briny waves turn the page

His Days Go by the Way Her Years

he smells like bottled root beerher pie in the sky allays his hunger and his days go by the way her yearshe is a lonely pluralher door-latch is sour or sorethe au contraire of plentiful is he(won’t they help her build her Tower of Basil?)she hairs his chest he heartens her sweetheartone day every living soul will turn to soilhe ocean fleets a vesselshe mountain passes a nightWednesday likes the rainby rain were they woven into angelfisheyes unfolded into riddlesyet he steals beneath her iron skinand leaning on the chair-back of timegradually invents a kind of knock

the more he is the sun the more she is the moon

A Blind Date Makes Him Dilapidate

The backdrop was a salty crisp deep green. Their gloom wells into one accord. Some cherries turn to glass.

Her right arm smacks of soda cracker. Proliferating fingerprints pule in the air.

Now that Spring’s propped up and filled to bursting \ they’re plump in the middle of their first blind date \ he clasps a clap of thunder in his hand \ she closes her eyes like a vacant space \ someone is playing music \ someone is carrying a caramel latté \ someone is delivering the night \ he deftly pinches up a purplish white thunderprint \ she’s come to feel that solitude’s so beautiful so savory \ that she decides to prolong him in his dilapidated state

Her Perspire-y Left Hand Was Semi-Colon-y

That was the 7th day／she was savoring her morning meal on the edge of the islet＼ the sun was growly／naupakashrubs were like a line of slipshod quotation marks and brackets＼her perspire-y left hand was semi-colon-ythe eyes of those certified ㊣ spotted deer no matter how you put it are love are warm and genial seas＼so ease -ily／wrung drycrisp time like apple strudel／people are forever cutting the sheep from the cattle

everybody needs a Sleeping Beauty and a pugjust like a harbor needs a boat／a hot spring a boiled eggthe prison warden hands out cuffs and locks

coral loiters in the place from whence it came waiting for the ocean to come backher skin soaks into a kind of solar black＼the sky is looking-glass blue／thatch screw pine a deaf and dumb green＼every one of the □ □／could find themselves sluiced by the □ □ □ into a watermelon frappe of a summer seasonmidday over／the □ □ fairly often become fertile

Susan M. Schultz’s feature on Pacific poetries brings together “forms for an ocean”: work that meets and exceeds the notions of containment and fathoming that accompany any effort at identifying a region for poetry. Essays and poems are collected here along with a gallery of visual works by Hawai’i artists.